Nominee for Best Use of Tolkien in Sports Writing

Here is a nifty bit of writing from Charles P. Pierce which appears on the Grantland website:

But this is not a normal season, and the way you know it's not a normal season is that the New England Patriots started their training camp early, and that they started training camp with press conferences. During these, among other marvels, coach Bill Belichick spoke in actual paragraphs more often than he will do for the rest of the season. One of his team's young stars, Aaron Hernandez, has been arrested for allegedly killing a man named Odin Lloyd. Hernandez subsequently was named as a suspect in two additional killings in the South End of Boston. As a result, the team, which only last year had bestowed upon Hernandez a monumental contract, found its personnel processes under minute inspection and under considerable ridicule. The problem clearly had to be addressed. So the Patriots decided to open the Gates of Mordor early. The result was a five-day exercise in open dialogue, frank exchanges of ideas, and everything else the New England Patriots have avoided like cholera ever since the Super Bowl hardware started piling up at the turn of the century. Locking up Aaron Hernandez freed the New England Patriots, at least for a weekend, and that's only one of the minor ironies in the whole tragic escapade.

Read it all here.